汶川, a trip to a Tibetan Village

It's Sunday night here and I just got back this afternoon from our weekend trip to WenChuan. In a word, it was amazing. Laura didn't come along because she had sign language class on Saturday, but Li Juan did so Li Juan and I caught a taxi to campus at 7:45am on Saturday morning. At this point in time I still had no idea where we were going (Wen something was all I had heard), all I knew was that we would be staying over night. At 8am Ben, Matt, Deborah, Tabitha, Pang Laoshi (our exchange program coordinator) and her daughter, Li Juan, two of Li Juan's students named Eddie and Michelle, and I got in the van and started off West. Eddie and Michelle are obviously not their real names, but Chinese names are very hard to remember and they asked us to call them by their English names. Along the way we stopped for lunch (Chinese trips always keep you very well fed) and arrived at WenChuan at about 3:30pm. WenChuan is a small Tibetan village of about 180 people set in the mountains of Western Sichuan at about 2500 ft. It felt like fall there, which I loved. They had beautiful wood-working and paint on all the doors and windows. The air was clear and crisp, a sharp distinction from the air in Chengdu and the trees on the mountains were all turning. There was snow on the very tops of some of the mountains. The scenery was absolutely beautiful. The houses there were 2 story affairs built of 6" x 12" x 8" granite blocks fit together with smaller rocks. Each house was surrounded by fields of cabbage, which is the main basis of income for this community besides tourism. Surprisingly, all of the cabbage seemed to be left in the fields this year. We asked the guy who owned the house we stayed in why they had left the cabbage to rot in the fields. He said that this cabbage was only selling for 2 kuai per jin (a jin is a common unit of measure equal to about half a kilo) this year because the weather had been bad so the cabbage was not good enough to warrent digging up and transporting to town to sell, they would not have made a profit on it. This year they only made 100 kuai on cabbage and were relying on tourism to make ends meet. Even though tourism was a large part of their income, the town was far from a touristy. It seemed as though nothing had changed to accommodate the tourists, it was as if we weren't even there. Many of the Chinese tourists that come have a guide that escorts them the 2 miles up the mountain to an old battlefield where they will camp for the night and head down in the morning. Many being a relative term, as this place is still not a well-known or popular destination for Chinese people because of the rustic accommodations. This battle field is a flat, grassy spot with run-down stone buildings standing around. The battle occurred between two ethnic minority groups, the Zang (Tibetan) and the Qiang (very similar to Tibetan, but not), very long ago. The two groups, though seemingly very similar, are still very divided and will not inter-marry. We did not get to hike all the way up the mountain or camp on the grassy battle field because we arrived too late in the day. Instead, our van driver drove us as far as he could, then we hired someone from the village to drive us up the curvy, rutted-out mountain roads in a little cart behind his little red tractor. The tractor ride was very smushed and a little scary, but quite an experience. We had to walk another mile or so to get to the battlefield. On the way we crossed a rickety old bridge across a ravine. Only 2 people were allowed on the bridge at one time and I tried not to think too hard about why. You can see the prayer flags on both sides of the "railings", which decorated everything in the village. We continued on for another few hundred meters and reached a waterfall with a little pool on the side. It was cold and I didn't have my swimming suit, but it was the perfect swimming hole. Then we had to hurry back so we could get back before dark. The tractor ride down the hill was even more fun than on the way up. It was like a tilt-a-whirl or roller coaster gone terribly, terribly wrong. It was thrilling to say the least and I couldn't stop smiling all the way down. We met our van again and it was dark by the time we got back to the village where we would spend the night. We sat around a small charcoal fire to keep warm while they made dinner for us. I felt bad because Pang Laoshi and Li Juan were very demanding and condescending when asking things of our hosts, but there was really nothing I could do. Deborah, Matt, Ben and I all felt the same and we just tried to be as nice and thankful as we could without offending Pang Laoshi or Li Juan. I think part of it is a sort of racism that the Han people have against minority groups and part of it is just the way Chinese people treat all service people (like restaurant workers, etc). For example, they were eating dinner when we came in and they made them stop eating dinner to make us dinner. She also made them go down to the store to buy us chickens for dinner. The hardest thing for me was not that our hosts gave us so much, which also should have happened in Yangjuan, it was that it was expected or demanded of them in a very ungrateful way. I think Pang Laoshi was especially harsh because it was not as nice as she had expected and she felt embarrassed and kept apologizing to us. We just kept trying to reassure her that this is exactly what we wanted and we loved it. After dinner we walked up the hill to the house we would spend the night in. The 5 of us wanted to stay together, but they made us split up into one big room of all 6 girls and one room with all 4 boys. It was cold that night in our big, unheated, stone room and I slept very well. In the morning Deborah and I got up and walked around while we watched the sun peek up behind the mountains and the fog. At 8am we drove back up the mountain to a different place where there was a Tibetan temple. This temple also had a Dalai Lama, but he was not there at the time. The temple consisted of two smaller, skinny buildings full of a row of gold prayer wheels and the main temple, as well as some other abandoned looking buildings around the compound. The main temple was beautifully decorated in the classic Tibetan style, like the other houses. It had two lion statues out front with white scarves tied around their necks. We also all wore the white prayer scares around our necks. When you put them on each other you say a prayer that means "good will to you" sort of. Inside the front portico of the building, on either side, were two huge prayer wheels. There was an old woman turning one of them when we got there and chanting a prayer. She said it would be fine if we turned them to, so we got to try it. There was a stick sticking out of the top that would ring a bell hanging from the ceiling each time the wheel made a full revolution. The woman said she comes here three times a day to pray. We didn't get to go inside the temple because it was locked because the Lama wasn't there. After about a half an hour, in classic Chinese tourism style, we returned to the van and drove down the mountain to get breakfast. By the time we reached the town it was about 11 and we ate noodles and baozi for more of a brunch. Those who know me well will be proud to know that the noodles had pickled mustard greens in them and I still ate it. It was not my favorite, but mustard greens don't really taste like mustard here and the Sichuan pickling style (which is famous) is much better than pickling in the US, so it is tolerable. By the time I get back, there's not going to be anything I don't like. The drive back was long, but I slept alot. Now I am back and trying to get my homework done that I did not do all weekend. Happy Fall!

Pumpkin Carving and the Sichuan University Olympic Games

Today we talked about traffic in my class and how crazy it is. I don't think there really is a good way to describe it, Laura and I are going to try to film it though and then hopefully you all will understand the honking, cars, people, bikes and chaos that is my daily commute. After class Deborah, Laura, Matt, and I went down by the East gate to a street where all the middle school kids eat. There is a middle school in the ChuanDa campus and they don't have a cafeteria (that I'm aware of) so all the kids go outside to this little street vendor and restaurant area to eat. It's nice because it is really busy and all the food is really cheap. I had this fried chicken on a stick that had spice all over it, a banana ice cream cone, and fruit (mostly grapes and kiwi) on stick covered in a simple syrup. It was all delicious and cost 4 kuai all together. It's like the state fair, but better. Deborah also had some fried potatoes and grilled lotus root, both prepared with spices on top of course. Matt and Laura both got cold noodles and Matt also had a fried chicken sandwich thing. The abundance and variety of food here will never cease to amaze me, you really can't go wrong. Especially the street food. Yum!
On the way back we got another job offer. People are constantly approaching us everywhere we go because they want us to somehow promote their product or business. This time it was two people who were part of a cosmetics company and they wanted two Western women to be models for some of their new products. Part of me wants to do it because I want to see what it would be like, but I just feel to weird about it. First, these people are always approaching me on the street and that is a little unusual. I don't know where it is or exactly what will be required of me or, in this case, what my pictures will be used for, or anything. Second, I don't like the Chinese idolization of Western looks. It's all just a little unsettling. But we got rid of them by pointing them in the direction of the Foreign Student Dorm and saying that we would be out of town this weekend so we could not take the pictures (they wanted to do it this weekend), which is true.
Then I went swimming and listened to the band practice "America the Beautiful" in the building next to the pool. It was very surreal and I couldn't keep myself from smiling at the bizarre feeling of swimming in a cold, outdoor pool in China as it's getting dark listening to "America the Beautiful" situation. By that time I was also the only one left in the pool, but they turned on the lights for me. I felt like I was in a movie or something.
After that Deborah, Matt, and I went to Shamrock's, the foreign bar, because they were having pumpkin carving, well nan gua carving anyways. Nan gua is like a mixture between an pumpkin and a butternut squash. I made mine into a cat sitting on a fence, Matt's is the one to the left of mine in the picture. His is a devil and looks like the Spitfire logo. This was only the second time Deborah had ever carved pumpkins and I thought her's was great, it had alot of character even though he was missing a few teeth . :-) After that we went home because I wanted to get some sleep before my race tomorrow and I don't really like that bar. It is full of nostalgic, drunk, ex-patriots and just feels weird and kind of sad. But we got to sit outside when we carved pumpkins and that was really fun!
I had be at the stadium at 7:20am the next morning for the opening ceremony. I got there and there were people everywhere!! Every department had a different outfit on and were all gathering before we marched in the stadium for the ceremony. It felt like the Olympics, or as close as I'm ever going to get anyways. Some teams wore suits and were very formal, some had track suits like us but different colors, all sorts of things. We milled around for about an hour before we were given these 3 feet long gold tubes that were like giant party poppers and tried to line up. We also had a banner that said "Overseas Education School" and a big flag that was carried by this Swiss guy riding a skate board. Then we were ushered into the stadium. Each department marched in separately and had something they did when they walked into the middle. The Chinese are much more organized and disciplined than we were, and so had little routines they would do with little props (like pompoms or something, and chants they would say. We had enough trouble keeping 5 people in a line. So we all walked in mass lead by a skateboarding flag-bearer into the stadium. As people starting cheering for us, some of the foreign students started blowing off their rocket things and then more people started blowing them off. It was all very disorganized and chaotic, but still very fun and exciting. Some of the foreign students were a little rowdy (not Americans, which I was surprised about) because there are never any repercussions for us, but no one seemed to mind. You can get away with alot as a lao wai. Also, alot of the people participating in the opening ceremony weren't competing, so they didn't really care about being serious about it. We all stood on the field and some people gave speeches from the judging table (which you can see below the flag that says 2006 Sichuan University Track and Field Meet) and they opened the games. Deborah and I sat with a bunch of the other foreign students and watched the first few races. It started out with women's 100 meters, which no foreigners competed in, and then onto men's. There was one kid from my class who ran in this race, but he finished last in his heat. The Chinese are FAST! It was really amazing and just a huge event. At about noon I decided to go home and chill a litte bit before my race. It was kind of cold outside too. So I went home, went for a short run to warm up and sat a round for an hour or two. When I got back to school at 3:45, my teacher helped my go down to the registration area and get ready for my race. 50 girls were running the 3000m race with me, in two heats. I was in the first heat and number 22. I thought of you Alex and thought it was a good sign. At about 4:00 my heat all lined up on the track in two staggered lines and at the shot of the gun we were off. I've never run track before or raced this distance before, so I didn't really know how to pace it. I just figured I'd run pretty fast and pick it up at the end if I felt like I could. The race was 7 and 1/2 times around the track and for the first lap I stayed with about 4 or 5 other girls at the front of the pack. By the second lap all they were starting to slow down, so I moved into the lead. By the 4th lap, I had a decisive lead and started passing the straglers. By the time I finished there were tons of people cheering and all the foreign students were down on the track to see me finish. People always say "Jia you" in China, which is the equivalent of "Keep Going!" or "Come on!" but literally means "re-fuel". I was really happy with my race, but for a long time I didn't know my time or how I did compared to the other heat. After I finished I felt famous. Everyone wanted to congratulate me, even people I had never met. On the way out of the stadium they had posted the results and it turns out someone in the second heat beat me by 4 seconds so I got 2nd place with a time of 12:57.3. I was still really happy to place at all. I didn't get any pictures of myself running, but one of my classmates Eddie is a professional photographer and he got some really good ones. Once I get them from him I'll put one up so you guys can see me running. It was really exciting and I had alot of fun! I can't go to the awards ceremony tomorrow morning because I am going on that field trip with my Exchange Program, so my teacher is going to accept my award for me. I'm sad I will miss it though, because the top 3 get to stand on a podium and these girls in qipaos give you flowers and put the medals around your neck. It really feels so much like the Olympics, it was a way bigger deal than I ever expected. But, on to other adventures, so I'll let you guys know how the trip to WenChuan goes tomorrow.

Maybe taking Chinese Medicine is good for the Heart

So i am going to start this blog with some things I saw riding my bike home today that I thought were distinctly China: First I ran into a guy "walking" his two dogs on his moped. Then, coming out of the alley by my house, I saw a teenage boy doing tricks on his bike in front of 6 men pulling down power lines by all grabbing hold of them and running away from the pole until the power lines fall to the ground.
So I left off on Monday... ...
Monday I had class in the morning than I went with Ben (I finally learned the name of this chef guy from New York) and Martin to the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine. Besides Ben and I, Martin and Zack will also be taking the class. Martin is Swedish and Zack is American and could not come with us because he was back in the states for a wedding and that is pretty much all I know about them right now. We met with a guy who worked in the foreign office and went over the syllabus. Then we tried on chef coats. The coats are really cool. They have the school seal on the breast and they come with hats and white aprons, it's so professional. Then we paid him with a huge wad of cash and he took us to this huge, industrial SAM'S CLUB like store to buy knives and things. I could have spent hours in there, but he clearly wanted to get going so we picked out knives, shears, and some small dish towels and left. After that we got lunch at a delicious street side restaurant and went back to school. I went swimming and had a group meeting with Andrea before I could go home. I usually leave at 8am every morning and don't get home until 8 or 9pm.
Tuesday we had a meeting with some people from the Asian Languages Department at UW who came to check out the possibility of setting up a more extensive exchange program with SCU. They are thinking of possibly setting up going to ChuanDa as an option for third year Chinese. I like the idea, because I think everyone should get to have an experience like this and it is so awesome. But, I also don't like it because part of the reason this program attracted me is the freedom we have here, which would disappear if UW did a larger program here. It would be a much more self-contained program. Also, they kept wondering about how we worked this out with our academic programs and host departments and the answer is we didn't. The only major going to China really works for is Chinese. In any other discipline, you have to basically agree to take a year off or at least delay graduation a little. I don't know what they'll do though. Tuesday night was wrapped up by another Quiz Night at the Bookworm. Team Awesome is moving up in the world and did not get dead last this time, we tied for second to last. First, second, and third place get prizes and our goal is to win something by the end. Fun was had by all.
Today has been even busier than the previous two days. After class I had to go to the hospital to get a "heart check". I am competing in a track & field meet at Chuan Da this Friday and I have to get a heart check before I do it because people have died running before. I'm serious, last year and then two years before that students have died. Anyways, my heart is fine but I was very proud of myself after I went to the hospital by myself. I had to ask about a million people where to go next and couldn't have done it without help, but the point is I went to the hospital by myself, spoke all Chinese, and came back out again with what I wanted, a piece of paper certifying a clean bill of health.
About the sports meet. Everyone at Sichuan Daxue, as well as other schools though I'm not sure which ones, can enter. They have all the normal track and field events; running, relays, jumping, shot put, etc. I signed up to run the 3000 meters. I figured if there is one thing I have on Chinese people, especially Chinese girls, it's endurance.
After going to the hospital, I went to the Foreign Student Office and dropped my health form off. I also picked up my "uniform" for Friday. The Chinese are very big on sweat suit uniforms and all the middle school and high school kids are required to wear them. This one is white nylon and says Sichuan Daxue on the front jacket in blue characters. On the back it says Overseas in big blue characters too because I am competing for the Overseas School of ChuanDa.
Then I went swimming. The water is getting colder and colder and the air is finally starting to cool off a little too. I think air temperature was about 75 degrees F (24 degrees C) and the water was 21 degrees Celsius (I asked) which is about 70 degrees F. After that Deborah and I went to see Dr. Fang again. I'm sure your all wondering how that turned out. Well, I finished all my medicine and nothing happened. He wrote me another formula today and said I still have the same problems, but I haven't gotten it filled yet and I don't know if I'm going to. Taking Chinese medicine was definately an adventure. These are some pictures I took in my class so you could see what it was like.

Sometimes bad days happen, even in China... ...

Today is October 22nd, which marks the 2 month anniversary of my arrival in China! To commemorate the day, I am going to start off this blog by introducing the people that I have been hanging out with in Chengdu on my program. This is a group picture we took at the Bookworm, that foreign language bookstore where we sometimes meet. It is horrible, but it is the only picture I have that we are all in. So starting from me and going counterclockwise:
Deborah Sung is sitting next to me. She is a senior in International Studies and Pre-Med. She is doing her research project on the role of traditional doctors (called Bimo) in ethnic minority groups in China and how that role has changed since the Cultural Revolution. She is American Born Chinese and speaks Mandarin at home with her family, who are Taiwanese. It has made her experience here at lot different than ours. Because she looks Chinese and can speak, people sometimes assume she is Chinese even if she already told them she is American and will assume she knows everything about Chinese culture and rules and things so they are alot less patient and forgiving.
Next is Ben Gertsen who is a sophomore and majoring in Archeology. His research project is a video project about ethnic tourism in a small village called Yishala. It is an Yi village and the people there have recently decided to turn their town into a tourist destination for people to come and see a "traditional Yi village". He has been in China longer than us because he spent a month in a city a little South of Beijing doing a intensive language program before school started. He is also a soccer player at UW and has been playing on alot of teams here.
Top row on the right is Laura DeVere, my roommate. She is a junior, I think, and is majoring in Chinese. Her project is about Chinese sign language and the deaf community in Chengdu. She is fluent in ASL and does alot of stuff related to that in the states and is now in the process of learning Chinese sign language. Besides Deborah, she has been studying Chinese for the longest (2 years). She is very independent and has to work to pay for school, like me. I know alot about Laura, but I don't really know what else to say here.
Standing next to Laura is Tabitha Hart. Tabitha is a China Studies major and is also a junior. She is doing her project with Sunny (coming up next) and it is about coffee culture in Chengdu. Coffee shops have been going up all over the place and there had been some controversy, especially generational, about how it will affect the tea culture that has been part of Chinese society for so long.
Next to Tabitha is her project partner Sunny Boo. I am not sure what Sunny is majoring in Chinese as well. Sunny is Korean and Korean is here first language. She has made friends with the other Korean foreign exchange students here. Sunny was about a week late getting here because she was in a car accident in Korea and couldn't fly for a while because she had to wear a neck brace; it wasn't too serious though.
Next to Sunny is Matthew Reinert who is a junior and a Biology major. His research project is an ornithological survey of Yangjuan. Basically, going out with the little boys and catching frogs, then writing down their names and anything the people know about them in Yi. Matthew used to live on Bainbridge in the community housing project there, which was one of the first in the nation. He also reads alot and knows alot about pretty much everything and is really fun to talk to.
And last but not least is our "mentor" in Chengdu, Andrea Elliot. Andrea's role in our group is pretty much to help us out in anyway we need because we don't have a professor here with us, but she is more like a friend than and is an excellent resource. We have weekly meetings with her where we can ask any questions we have about buying bus tickets or our research or our classes, pretty much anything. We are also starting to take field trips in and around the city to places we might not find otherwise, which is a lot of fun too. Andrea has lived in Chengdu for about 2 years (I think). She teaches at the Sports University, which is a University pretty much for gym teachers, although they have other majors now too. She teaches an English Literature class. She is also here apprenticing Dr. Fang to learn more about Chinese medicine and hopefully open some kind of practice when she gets back to the States this June. She went to SIOM (Seattle Institute of Oriental Medicine).
So that's the group, we like to call ourselves Team Awesome because that was our team name when we went to Quiz Night.
I also told you all that I was going to go to Lezhi on Saturday. Well it turns out we didn't quite make it. I met Deborah, Ben, Matt, and Andrea at the North gate of campus at 7am on Saturday morning and we all took taxis to the closest bus station (there are several in Chengdu). We bought our tickets for Lezhi and got on the bus. So far so good, since when we had told other Chinese people we were planning to go to Lezhi the had either never heard of it or asked "why would you want to go there?" About an hour into the bus ride is when things went terribly wrong. We were driving down the middle of a little two lane road in a very small one road town and there was a motorcycle that was pulling up next to us on the right. The motorcycle had three grown men on it and was going a little faster than the bus. When the motorcycle got ahead of the bus, I guess they wanted to go to the other side of the road and the cut in front of the bus. They were all looking straight at the bus when it hit them. They smashed into the windshield; then the bike fell under the front tire and was dragged about 30 feet. We didn't know what to do and we just sat on the bus for a few minutes. I couldn't see anything except the shattered windshield, but I wasn't trying to look. I could see a crowd quickly gathering around where the people were lying. After a little while it was too uncomfortable to be on the bus and we got off. We stepped over blood on the way down the front steps. One of the guys, I can only assume the driver, was lying in front of the bus right by the motorcycle. There was another guy on the side of the bus on the curb. The third guy was the best off and could walk around and just had a minor head injury. I felt really helpless. I didn't want to be part of the gawking crowd, but there was really nothing I could do. All of them were still alive, but I don't know if the two other guys were going to make it or not because they were pretty bad off. Fortunately the ambulance came really fast because I think the driver called right away. After that we just got on the next bus that came that was going back to Chengdu. It was really sad and terrible. It makes you think that things like this do happen and I am going to be extra careful riding my bike from now on.
Sunday was a new day and after doing some homework in the morning I rode to school to play ping pong with some friends. They have outdoor courts a couple places on campus, which I think are really cool and that's where we played. I was working on holding my paddle the Chinese way, "the Mandarin Death Grip". I'm actually getting pretty good and it was alot of fun to play outside. After that I went swimming and the guys started bothering me about swimming too long again. They say it's dangerous, but I'm getting more confident so this time I just told them that it wasn't a problem and I felt fine and that I swim alot. That's pretty much all I could say in Chinese and I was almost done anyways, but they stood at the end of my lane until I got out. They are so funny. Now it's time for bed so I will report back soon. 晚安和小心！I also learned how to write Chinese characters on my computer, yea! It says good night and be careful.

More adventures in Chinese medicine

This afternoon we had another American culture class. This one was taught by the same teacher, who if you haven't noticed is obsessed with America, but it is for graduate students and is about tourism. It started with us walking in the class and everyone applauding. You don't really know how to act. Then we divided into small groups and each went to talk with a few Chinese students. We didn't rally talk about tourism much in my group, but we did talk about alot of other things. Mostly normal, like what are your hobbies, what do you study, sort of questions. But the students were very nice and it was pretty fun. This time they asked me what i think of love and marriage and if I think love can last, which I thought was a little weird. They asked because they have the idea that American youth want to be single and free and divorce is becoming more and more common in China.
After brewing one batch of my Chinese Medicine myself, I decided that it took a long time and I didn't really want to do it again. Li Juan told me I can go to the hospital on campus and they will cook it for me for a small fee. So after class Deborah and I went to the hospital to see if I could get them to brew it for me. The building itself was not that bad, but the Chinese medicine brewing room was out back in this little alley thing. We could smell the room before we actually got there, Chinese medicine has a very distinctive smell. We entered this room full of about 20 rice cookers cooking different people's medicine and a middle aged man cooking them. This guy spoke the worst Sichuan hua I have ever heard and we asked him to speak Pu Tong hua, but he couldn't. So, I was really glad I brought Deborah, although it was really hard for her to understand him too. Finally we figured it out and we paid 4.20 kuai for him to cook it and put it in 6 little pint-size glass bottles. He said it would be ready at 5:20 (about an hour), so I went swimming and then went to pick them up.
This evening Laura, Li Juan, and I went to dinner at a neighbor's house. One of Li Juan's friends is friends with these people that lives in our compound. It is a family, mom, dad, and two twin sons. The sons weren't home yet when we came over but they got home in the middle of dinner. Even though the boys were twins, they still called them didi and gege (big brother and little brother), which I thought was a little strange. There house was very neat and very nice. We sat and talked to the dad while the mom finished cooking dinner. The food was delicious! The family was very nice, but it was a little weird having Li Juan there because she spoke for us most of the time and was talking for probably about 3 hours straight. No one else could get a word in edge-wise, us least of all. But it was really fun and I'm glad to finally meet some other people that live around us. Hopefully we will hang out with them again. Now I'm tired and I'm going to go to sleep. I've got to get up early tomorrow because we are going on an adventure tomorrow to Lezhi, a town we read about in a book. I will tell you more about it tomorrow after I get back.

Day 1 taking Chinese Medicine

So I'm not dead yet. There have been some guesses going around about what exactly is in this concoction that I am now subjecting myself to, which I intend to clear up in the future. Right now I don't really know either, but I trust Andrea and Dr. Fang so I'm sure it's not going to hurt me. I am going to ask Andrea when I see her on Saturday what my prescription is called exactly or what is in it. Then I'm going to do some research about biochemically what these herbs are doing to me and I'll let you all know as soon as I do. What I do know is that it tastes just like it smells, which is not that good. It is very bitter and tastes like ... ... well like plant I guess, it's kind of hard to describe. I found that the best way to take it is all at once. Each time I drink about 10 or 12 oz and I do this 3 times a day. Nothing remarkable has happened yet, but it is only day 1 of 7. The bottle I'm holding and is in the refrigerator is just a bottle I poured it into after I brewed it. Once batch made that bottle plus a Nalgene full and I am supposed to drink all that in 2 days so I can finish all four packages in a week. Yuck! I really want to see what happens though, so I'm going to keep doing it. I'm intrigued...
In other exciting news, I learned that the swimming pool I go to has a sort of masters winter swim team and they invited me to join. There is no practice or anything, just open swim like I have been going to already, but they do have meets (of sorts) against other colleges. I'm really excited about that. They were really excited too because they said I am a "professional level" (meaning literally that your job is to swim) swimmer and I would be the best one in the meets. I also met a guy who is a new grad student at ChuanDa going for his MBA who wants to be language partners. He is very nice and very interesting and I hope we can start to practice a few times a week. His English name is Greatson because he wants to be a "great" person. I thought that was classic. The English names the Chinese people give them selves are so great. Sometimes they are normal, but Laura also has a friend named Success, so obviously some are not.
I'm sorry if my grammar and writing is getting worse than it already was. I have found that sometimes I think in Chinese now and have to look for the words in English, which is really exciting. This happens most when I am talking to someone in English about a conversation I had in Chinese because alot of words and meanings don't translate exactly. It would be really hard to be a translator. The languages are just so different. But I'm getting better everyday!

Zhongyi, a trip to the Chinese doctor

This evening after I got out of class Deborah and I met up with Andrea because we were going to accompany her to clinic this afternoon. Andrea went to the Seattle Institute of Asian Medicine and has been teaching at the Sports University and studying with traditional Chinese doctors here in Chengdu for the past few years. Once or twice a week she will go and sit in clinic and observe a traditional Chinese herbalist named Dr. Fang. There are many branches of Chinese medicine that are divided mainly into internal and external. External are things like acupuncture or moxibution, while internal medicine deals mainly with herbs. Andrea, Deborah, and I arrived at the clinic, which was a little old-style building on the side of a busy road, at about 5:45 or so. Andrea had told us to bring white lab coats because that was the in-clinic attire, so we all donned our lab coats went in. The building was very much open to the street on the front side. On the left hand side there was a little pharmacy with drawers full of all the herbs where the prescriptions are filled. Then there is a little hallway with small 5' by 5' rooms that are open to the hallway and the street on one side and have a little desk in the middle. Dr. Fang is a very nice man in his mid-60's. He graduated from college just before the Cultural Revolution and then was forced to go work in the country for over a decade, so much of what he knows he learned practicing there. When he returned to the city he taught at the Medical College in Chengdu as an Herbalist, but China has a mandatory retirement age of 60 for men and 55 for women. So he was forced to retire, then spent 5 years in Israel with an Israeli student of his setting up a new Chinese Medicine school there. He found out he had diabetes and decided to come back to Chengdu, so now he works at the "retired doctors clinic." Andrea, Deborah, two Israeli students, Dr. Fang, and I all fit in the small room. Patients pay 10 kuai and sign up at the front desk and then wait in the hall or outside the open wall of the room for Dr. Fang to call their number. At first I was very uneasy about the whole thing, 5 waiguoren (foreigners) wearing white lab coats observing and taking notes while a patient talks for 5 to 10 minutes to Dr. Fang about his or her problems. But it didn't seem to bother the patients at all, in fact for once in China I actually felt unnoticed. Plus all the other patients waiting in the hall were listening too, it was all very public. Dr. Fang always felt their pulse and looked at their tongue and asked them questions about what was bothering them. Illnesses are classified as having too much "heat" or "wind" or "damp". I decided that I wanted to see what Dr. Fang would say about me, so I signed up. The only problem I could think of was my shoulder, so I decided to tell him about that. However, Andrea said he would probably ask about my period so I should think about that too. So when it was my turn I told about my shoulder and then, sure enough, he asked about my period. I have never had a regular period; it usually comes about 3 or 4 times a year, very lightly with no side effects. I had asked Western doctors about this before and they had said it was nothing to worry about and it often happened with athletic girls like myself. Thus, I had always viewed it as a kind of blessing. But when I told Dr. Fang about it this is not how he responded. Having an irregular period in China is a VERY bad thing and he said that we need to deal with it right away, dismissing my shoulder as minor and maybe something we would address later. He said this was a sign that my chuan and ren (two channels that run through your body systems) were depleted and needed to be replenished. He also said I had a strong heat beat and a slightly yellow tongue, but I don't think this had alot to do with the diagnosis. So he wrote me a prescription with about 15 different herbs in different amounts and told me to take it all in about a week and then come back. So we left and went out to the pharmacy to get my prescription filled. I watched as the lady measured out identical herb mixture batches with a little hand scale. It had small red furry looking things and lots of dried brown things and little white cubes and all sorts of different things. Andrea said she would translate the prescription for me later, so I will let you all know exactly what it is I am taking. I am also going to do some research to see if I can find out what those herbs are doing to my body biochemically, although I think that is maybe a little against the Chinese medicine way. So I went home with my four little bags and cooked the first one. To cook it you cover the herbs with water and bring it to a boil and then let it simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Then drain the water into a container and do it 2 more times. After you have boiled, simmered, and saved 3 batches of medicine, you can get rid of the herbs. The medicine looks like brown water, like from a mineral and sediment-filled stream. It smells pretty bad too and I hear that it tastes really bitter. I haven't tasted it yet though, I'm starting tomorrow.

LeShan-the biggest Buddha in the world

Today we went with the International school to LeShan and Mei Shan. We stopped at Mei Shan first. There we went to Sansu Shrine, which was the former residence of Su Xun, So Shi, and Su Zhe, famous writers from the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). Sansu Shrine was a beautiful park with a compound of little buildings all around. If there is one thing that the Chinese do well, it is parks. This was of course the classic Chinese tour where you get off the bus and have someone yell at you through a bull horn for a half an hour then get back on the bus. So we decided to skip out right away. It was very pleasant just wandering around the winding paths over rivers and by waterfalls. There were lots of very nice tea houses and a guy doing calligraphy. If we would have had longer, it would be a very nice place to sit and drink tea and read. But alas, after 40 minutes we got back on the bus and drove somewhere to eat lunch. We ate at this fancy hotel restaurant and it was very good. Not very spicy though, I think they think Westerners don't like spice. Then we went to LeShan. LeShan is famous for a 71m high Buddha carved into the face of the mountain. The carving of the Grand Buddha (Da Fo) was started in 731 AD by a Buddhist monk and engineer by the name of Haitong. The sculpture was finally finished 90 years after Haitong's death, but he did all the work organizing funding and hiring workers and planning the giant feat. The Grand Buddha overlooks a place at the confluence of the Dadu and Min Rivers where there was a hole in the river and boatmen used to vanish. He built the Buddha in hopes of protecting the boatmen. It worked because all the rock from the carving fell into the river and filled the hole. The Buddha was utterly amazing. The toe is like 4 ft tall. It was very crowded though as well. We got in line at the top of the Buddha's head and walked slowly down the cliff, past other ancient carvings in the sandstone, to the foot of the Buddha. Then we wandered off to explore the rest of the park, which was also beautiful. We found a restaurant that overlooked the river and a lovely tea house set back in the mountain. There was also an area with a waterfall and lots of calligraphy tablets on the stone walls.
While at LeShan I was walking around with this other American I have made friends with named I think Ben, but I forgot so I'm going to have to ask him tomorrow. Anyways, he is a chef from New York and is here taking language classes at Sichuan University before starting culinary school at the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine, which is also in Chengdu. I was asking him about it today and he told me that the school had set up a special 7-week program for him with a chef and an interpreter. Then he said the course cost 18,000 RMB but could be split among a number of people. He said another American named Zach was planning on taking the class with him and asked if I would like to join. I thought about it all afternoon and decided that I have always wanted to go to culinary school and I cannot pass up an opportunity like this. So I emailed my advisor here to try to drop the one class I have that conflicts, Chinese Archeology which is kind of boring anyway, and will now have cooking class Monday, Tuesday, Friday 2:30-4:30pm. The class starts October 30th and they provide you with a chef outfit, but you have to get your own cleaver. Ben said he knows where to get them and we are going to go pick some out next week. At the end you get a certificate of completion and I will be a real Chinese chef! I'm so excited! It's like all my dreams are coming true. I'll let you guys know more once I find out more, but I can't wait! It will be a little expensive (about $750 US), but it will be worth it and you will all benefit from this enterprise. I said I wanted to learn how to cook Chinese food while I was here and now I'm going to!! The website for the culinary school is in Chinese, but Fuchsia Dunlop is a chef who went to the school and has published a Sichuan cookbook called Land of Plenty if you want to find out a little bit about it. Love you all and talk to you soon!!

A lazy weekend

Hello everyone. This weekend has finally been a nice little break after a long, hectic week. And, sorry this blog doesn't have any pictures. Saturday I did homework in the morning and went for a run and watched Ben play a soccer game in the afternoon. This game he was playing with a European team called the "Wanderers". It was a good game and it was fun to watch, but alot of the foreigners on his team had "badditudes". They were all really negative and angry at each other and the refs and the other team. I had never seen anything like it on a soccer field before and Ben said he hadn't either and didn't really like the people, he just liked playing with them because the game was a little more organized. The other games he plays in are "rec" games where anyone can come and play and there are about 5 pick-up games all going on at once.
After that, I rode home and met Laura and we rode our bikes across the city to Wall-Mart. This is another thing we found on our map and decided we had to go check out. And it really was ACROSS the city, pretty much as far away as it could be. But Chengdu really isn't as big as it seems. It took us about an hour to ride there and it was nice to see new parts of the city. It also really helps me get oriented and know where everything is. The Wal-Mart itself was not very western really. It was more like a Trustmart or Century mart or any other normal giant supermarket store you find all over China. The biggest differences were the isles were bigger so it seemed less crowded, it had western toilets and they played music in the bathrooms, and it had a larger, cheaper selection of Western food. I bought a box of corn flakes for 15 kuai and I usually see them for at least 30. Laura also bought some banana bread. The Wal-Mart even came equipped with a KFC. After leaving the Wal-Mart a guy came up to us and wanted to give us jobs. He wanted us to stand in front of his store because he said we were pretty Westerners. We have gotten alot of offers like this and declined. It seems weird and boring and this one was even very far away. Maybe sometime I'll take one of the jobs and see how it goes, but not from some random guy on the street.

Now its Sunday and I'm just going to sit around and do homework and watch movies and relax.

Afternoon in the Park

This afternoon after class Deborah, Matt, Ben, and I went on another adventure. On a tourist map of the city that we acquired there are some interesting tourist sites that are pointed out and we have decided to try to visit all of them, or all the interesting ones anyway. Today we took the bus downtown (Chenren lu kou) to go see a mosque. We got off the bus and wanted to cross the street. Sometimes they have these stairs on the sidewalk that look like subway entrances but really are just a way to cross the street. So we took one underground and instead of a little tunnel and another stairway going up on the other side, there was a whole shopping city underground. It was amazing. It seemed to go on for miles. We would walk a ways and then ask someone else if we were still going in the right direction and they would keep pointing us down this long corridor of stores that seemed to go on for miles. Finally we reached the very end (it was probably a mile long) and came up right near Tianfu Square. Tianfu Square is a famous monument in Chengdu and is right near the mosque, but it was under construction. We walked passed Tianfu and turned onto another street where we started to see signs of XinJiang culture. XinJiang Province is the Northwestern most province in China and is composed mostly of Uygar (pronounced Why-ger) people, which is a completely different culture than the Han Chinese. They look very different also. In almost all ways they are more similar to the Middle Eastern cultures than to China. They are darker and have long noses and speak Uygur, which is similar to Turkish and written in Sanskrit. They are Muslim (obviously, since we were going to the mosque) and were very big in silk trading on the Silk Road and gypsy sort of activity. They were nomadic for a very long time and have traditionally been persecuted by the Han Chinese, so relations are still not very good. Deborah and I split some noodles which are made very differently and still spicy but not as salty. They were very good. Matt and Ben also bought some Yak or sheep on a stick which they season and barbecue over an open flame. There is a XinJiang restaurant by Matt's house that also serves this and it is one of our favorites. There were several carts full of different kinds of dried fruit. We bought some dried apricots as well and they let as try many of the other kinds of fruit we couldn't identify. Most seemed like variants of dried plums and raisins. After that we ventured into the mosque. It was beautiful. It was on the second and third floor of a building had a very nice garden that someone was watering. It had a courtyard in the center, but actually not much of the building was enclosed at all. There were enclosed rooms around the perimeter and the two large prayer halls with individual carpets spread out on the floor, but all the walkways and balconies were open air and it was very pleasant. The architecture was a mix between the Islam dome shape, on many of the doorways and windows, and traditional Chinese style, on the roof tops.

After that we walked a few blocks to Renmin Gongyuan (People's Park). The park was also very pretty and had man-made waterfalls and a river running through it. There are lots of trees and there were people fan dancing, who we stopped to watch for awhile. We went because our politics teacher had mentioned that there was a May 4th Movement memorial there, but we never got around to finding it so we will have to go back. Instead we walked to a tea house in the park on the river where many people were playing MahJong. MahJong is a typical Chinese game with blocks that look like dominoes but are called pie (or cards). The game is very similar to Gin in cards and is VERY popular in Chengdu. Tea houses will fill up with older people playing Mahjong. They will bet on it also. Deborah and Ben both knew (a little) how to play and Matt and I both wanted to learn, so we got a MahJong set from the tea house with our tea and started to play. In the park Ben had been talking about a special he saw on the Travel Channel about Chengdu where the guy came to Remin Park and had his ears cleaned and how Ben wanted to try it. After we were playing for a few minutes, a little old man comes up carrying a bunch of little tools and asks us if we want to have our ears cleaned. We all figured, when else are we going to have this opportunity and decided to do it. Except for Deborah, who knew what it was like because her mom used to clean her ears at home. It is a very common thing in China; no deodorant, but meticulous ear cleaning. The whole process required about 5 different tools, 20 minutes and felt alot like being at the dentist, except you got a little back massage at the end. It felt very weird, but kind of nice. He started out with an ear picking tool then squirted water in your ear and used about 3 or 4 different brushes and a tweezers with little balled up toilet paper. He also vibrated the brush against the tweezers which felt the weirdest, like you had birds in your ears or something. We asked the guy, and apparently this guy was the exact one that had been on TV and cleaned the host's ears on the Travel Channel. He remembered it and said that many foreigners had come to the park to have their ears cleaned after they saw the show. It was definitely a unique experience and I'm glad I did it. I don't know if I can hear better or not, but I like to think it helps me hear Chinese, like babble fish or something.

After Ben, Matt, and I all had our ears cleaned, we went back to playing Mahjong. We played three or four games and by the end had gathered a crowd of about 15 or 20 old ladies that were helping us play. They were so fast it was amazing. We would pick up a block and they would know exactly what move we should make, there was no thinking. It was nice to have their help because Ben had just learned and Deborah had forgotten some of the rules. It was very fun and Deborah and I went out first and second in all the games. You play until one person loses and that is how to decide who pays who if you are betting. But we didn't bet and I still don't understand exactly how that part works. It is a very fun game though and I want to go back and play again.

At 7:30pm Chuan Da has something called English Corner that Chinese students keep asking me if I go to so I decided to check it out tonight. It is a bunch of students and other Chinese people that meet in front of the stadium and just stand around and practice speaking English in little conversation groups. All the people I talked to were all thrilled that I came and I hope to make a language partner or two out of it so I can practice my Chinese as well. What was most interesting to me was the diversity of the group. I expected all students who were studying Chinese at school, but a large part of it was people who had jobs and were learning Chinese on the side. All younger people though, under 35 or so. I only stayed for an hour and a half because I had to do my homework, which was call my teacher on the phone and tell her a story. I might go back to English corner again just because everyone was so happy that I was there and I am happy to help.

The rest of the night I spent lazing around doing pretty much nothing, which was nice after a pretty busy, long week. Happy Friday the 13th everyone! I hope your days went as well as mine!

In my next life, I want to be a bike mechanic

It has been a while since I last talked to everyone. Sorry about that, it has been a busy week. I should be reading my Chinese Politics book right now but instead I am going to write this blog and register with the consulate and Washington state so I can get an absentee ballot. Then I'm going to read. Monday night Deborah, Andrea, and I went to a new English language bookstore in the foreign district near school. It is called the Bookworm and is very nice. Andrea told us about it because she had been there before. It has tons of books and is a very nice place to just sit and read or chat. There are not very many places like that in China it's also nice to be in the majority for a moment. This is the second branch of the Bookworm. The first one is in Beijing. It also serves western food, but that is really expensive. However, that night I was really hungry so I ordered one of my favorite meals ever...a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and a margarita on the rocks. It was OK, but I was so hungry and excited to get a ham and cheese that I didn't really notice. We went because they were having a book reading. The book was "Chinese Lessons" by John Pomfret, who is a journalist for the Washington Post. He was also one of the first foreigners to be allowed into a University in China after the opening. He went to Nanjing University and got to stay in the dorms with the other Chinese students (which they still won't let us do at Chuan Da). For his book he traced down a bunch of his old classmates and told some of their stories to talk about how China has changed and how that generation has adapted to post cultural revolution China and it's massive growth. I really want to read the book and it was really interesting to step back and discuss the culture I have been trying to digest for the past month and a half. I have to remember to do that sometimes because it makes me alot more tolerant of some of the more annoying or frustrating aspects of Chinese life.
The next day, after a day of classes, Andrea, Deborah, Matt, Ben, Tabitha and I went back to the Bookworm for their first ever trivia night. I was really excited about it until the questions were all 19th century world history questions (the British century). This is just not a part of history the U.S. focuses on and needless to say we did not do that well. We were also up against teams from New Zealand, England, Sweden, maybe some other European countries and some Canadians. It was fun though and we did get some of the questions right. We are going to come back next time and hopefully do better.
This was also when the bike problems really started. The chain of my bike had been coming off alot, especially if I rode too fast, but I just figured it came with the territory. Monday morning when I was riding to school my bike chain actually broke in two. Fortunately all of the parts were still there so I put it back together myself and rode to school. That afternoon I went to the bike shop and told the guy my chain was broken and it fell off alot. He turned my bike over and hit some things and moved some parts and then told me it was fixed. I was perplexed, but figured he should know. However, he did not know because my bike officially broke last night.
Everyone rides bikes in China. Below is a picture of some bikes, but all the pictures we take never do the chaos any justice. Laura and I are currently investigating other ways to effectively document this and we think it might involve some sort of video taping...stay tuned. In China it is also very common to see two people riding on one bicycle. Usually a boy will ride the bike and a girl will ride side saddle on the back. You can also just sit on the back part facing forward. We call this being "biked". Ben's bike was stolen so I was going to bike him over to the Bookworm. But I was not very good and biking him and his legs were too long, so we switched and he successfully biked me over to the book shop. After trivia night we were biking home and made it about half way before my chain broke in two again. This time I did lose a part, the connecting link, and there was nothing we could do but walk the bike to Ben's dorm and park it there for the night. It took a taxi home.
So today I went back to the same bike shop and showed him my broken chain. I think this time the magnitude of the problem was understood much more. He got a new link out of a little box and fixed it in about 10 minutes for 1 kuai. Then I was riding home and half way there my bike broke again, but this time in a different way. The tire of my bike started rubbing up against my basket because it was wobbly and loose. I took it to the next bike shop I found and told them my wheel was loose. They said "Your wheel isn't loose, you need a new ...something" I couldn't understand the something word, but I think it was something like bearing because then he took off my wheel and took apart the hub part (the rod that the wheel rotates on). He took off two disks and inside there was this goop with little ball bearings in it. He scooped out the old goop and put new in and set about ten new little ball bearings in a perfect circle on both sides. Then he put the tire back on, a put a little air in my tires, and 20 minutes and 5 kuai later I was riding a fancy new bike (relatively speaking of course).
I rode home and opened some birthday cards and presents that I picked up today from Li Juan's office. I got cards from Mike and the Kosowski's and a package from my mom. The package was very fun but also contributed to my theory that my mom is nuts. Inside the box were a bunch of individually wrapped little packages. Inside these packages were small little presents ranging from socks and buttons(useful), to party blowers and balloons (cute), to Mr. Moon and a dream catcher I made in kindergarten (sentimental), to a rubber ducky, foam statue of liberty crown, and legos made into a block shape (what?). However useless these things are, I had a lot of fun opening them and I suppose that is the point. They did make me laugh out loud. I have also decided that I am going to be the statue of liberty for Halloween, so maybe the other seemingly un-useful things will find similar fates.
Tonight I rode my newly fixed bike back to the Bookworm for the 3rd night in a row. Today we were meeting with Andrea and her friend (who is the medical officer for the Peace Corps among other things and has lived in Chengdu for 10 yrs now and is a very interesting lady).

The Pet Shop

The weather in Chengdu has been amazing. It has been sunny and warm. Saturday afternoon I went outside to enjoy it at the tea house. The picture is of the tea house I usually study at. It looks out over the river. This is a new kind of tea I tried called ji hua. It came with a little bowl of sugar to make it sweet and was very delicious. It was also perfect outdoor swimming weather so after I finished my homework I rode my bike to school to go swimming. It rained again in the night and was cool when I woke up in the morning. Then it got nice again. I had class today, on Sunday. But it went OK. I got my first test back and I did pretty good. Then I went to the sports district of Chengdu to buy a new swimming suit. My old swimming suit strap broke so I had to buy a new one. The swimming suits they have are very weird. Almost all of them have padded boob things and are flowery and weird. So I finally found I normal swimming suit. It is purple and is like my old race suit, meaning only one layer. However, when I got to the pool this afternoon I put it on and discovered that Chinese swimming suits are not designed for my...body type. They have the smallest little butt parts ever! Next time I am either going to have to wear two suits or another bottom part, but I'll make it work. No one else seemed to care or even notice so maybe it wasn't actually that bad.

This afternoon Matt, Deborah, Sunny and I also went to the Pet Store district because Matt and Deborah are thinking about getting fish. If you haven't gathered by now, Chengdu is divided into different shopping districts. There is the foreign district, the electronics district, the pet shop district, the sports store district, the office supply district, and many different kinds of clothes districts, as well as many others. The pet store district is the cutest and saddest thing I have ever seen. They have tons of different kinds of animals all in these little cages. They had puppies that you could hold and pet. This picture is of Sunny and Me holding the sharpe and the beagle. The beagle was my favorite. I just had to keep telling myself "Sarah, you cannot get a dog!" It was weird though, because you would see a store with one each of six different kinds of puppies. The first store we went to had a lab, a beagle, a sharpe, a black poodle, a collie, some sort of tiny tea cup dog, one of those fluffy lap dogs, a terrier, and maybe one or two others. And they are all obviously pure bread too. I haven't seen any mutts in Chengdu yet. What is very popular is dog outfits. I'm thinking about buying one for Wally and Wanda, they would love it. (Wally and Wanda are my best friend's two bulldogs) They also had lots of other animals at the pet store. We saw rabbits, all kinds of mice and hamsters, a chinchilla (from South America), squirrels, chipmunks, birds, tons of fish, turtles, crabs, an iguana, snakes, salamanders, pretty much anything you can think of that is small enough to keep in a small cage. It was just row after row of little shop selling an assortment of animals and/or plants. The plant markets are connected with the pet markets here. They had shops filled with exotic plants from huge leafy plants to little mini cacti and every kind of plant container you could imagine. It was fun to see a new part of the city and after all that I had to stop and get a popsicle...